For some people it can, mostly through worry about the numbers, though no one knows how common that is. Trackers are better at spotting sleep than at spotting wake or sleep stages, and they can also help some people.
By The Savvy Rabbits Staff ·
✓Checked twice. Fact-checked against the original sources and approved by an editor. About our standards
For some people, yes. The main risk appears to be worry rather than the device itself, although nobody has a firm count of how many people it affects. Trackers can also help: useful for broad patterns, shaky on fine detail, and not a diagnosis.
Why is this in the news?
On November 4, 2026, Outside listed sleepmaxxing, including agonizing over a sleep score, among its “5 Wellness Trends We'd Like to See Go Away.” It warned that too much focus on sleep can turn rest into stress.
The audience is large. In a 2025 online survey of 2,007 U.S. adults commissioned by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), 48% said they had used a sleep tracker, up from 35% in 2023.
What is orthosomnia?
The word comes from a 2017 case series by Baron and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. It describes patients preoccupied with perfecting their tracker data, and it borrows from orthorexia, an unhealthy fixation on healthy eating.
The paper covers three patients. One, a 27-year-old woman, had a tracker reporting about 60% sleep efficiency. A night in a sleep lab found no breathing disorder and a higher share of deep sleep, although she took 97 minutes to fall asleep. After hearing she had slept deeply, she asked, “Then why does my Fitbit say I am sleeping poorly?”
Three cases cannot show how common a problem is. A 2024 study of 523 adults in Brain Sciences estimated orthosomnia in 3.0% to 14.0% of the whole sample, depending on the cutoff. Only about 36% of the sample regularly used a sleep tracker, and the method could count only those people, so these are not rates among tracker users, which would be higher. The sample was young and 81% female, and the authors said there are no established diagnostic criteria to test the method against, so the figures are rough.
The AASM survey also found that 76% of adults had lost sleep worrying about sleep problems. The release reports that figure for adults overall, not just tracker users, so it does not show that trackers caused the worry.
How accurate are the trackers?
The benchmark is polysomnography, an overnight lab test that records brain waves along with eye and muscle activity.
Sleep versus wake. A study of seven devices in 34 healthy young adults, with no device company involved, found they correctly identified at least 93% of sleep. They correctly identified only 18% to 54% of wakefulness, and they tended to do worse on nights of poor or disrupted sleep.
Sleep stages. In the same study, most devices misclassified 30% to 50% of deep and REM sleep.
Newer models. A 2024 study of 35 healthy adults tested the Oura Ring Gen3, Fitbit Sense 2 and Apple Watch Series 8 for one night. All three caught at least 95% of sleep. On average, the Apple Watch undercounted deep sleep by 43 minutes and the Fitbit by 15, while Oura showed no significant average difference. Oura funded that study, and its lead author sits on an Oura advisory board.
Wide variation. A 2023 study of 11 trackers in 75 people in Korea scored sleep-stage agreement with a measure where 1 is perfect. Results ran from 0.26 to 0.69, and not every tracker was tested on all 75 people. The top score went to the SleepRoutine app, and some authors hold stock or stock options in its maker, Asleep.
These studies compared minutes and stages, not the headline sleep score. A score adds another layer, and the 2024 authors noted that most manufacturers do not share raw data or algorithms.
Does a bad report change how people feel?
In the short term, experiments suggest it can.
In a 2018 trial in the Journal of Sleep Research, 63 people with insomnia disorder wore a watch built to act like a wearable. Each received invented feedback on their sleep, positive or negative. By evening, the negative group reported lower alertness and more sleepiness and fatigue. Computer tests of reaction speed and of attention to sleep-related cues showed no significant difference between the groups. The false report changed how people rated their day, but those tests detected no effect on those skills.
A 2014 pair of studies by Draganich and Erdal, with 164 college students in all, went a step further. Of those, 106 got an invented REM sleep reading, and the other 58 were controls who got none. People told they had spent 28.7% of their sleep in REM outscored those told 16.2% on two of the four mental tests used, although only the second study used all four. No consumer tracker was involved.
Neither experiment shows what happens over months of real tracking.
Can trackers help?
Yes, for some people. In a 2023 randomized trial in Sleep, 113 adults with insomnia symptoms spent five weeks with either wearable sleep data plus guidance on reading it, or sleep education with the sleep data hidden. The wearable group scored about two points lower on a standard insomnia questionnaire. The authors called the benefits modest, and smaller than those reported for cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Guidance was part of the package, so a tracker alone may not do the same.
Baron's case series includes a counterexample. A 69-year-old man's concern about restless periods on his tracker led to a sleep study that found severe obstructive sleep apnea.
The AASM's 2018 position statement reflects both sides. It said these devices could not then be used to diagnose or treat sleep disorders, but could be used to enhance the interaction between patient and clinician.
What is a sensible way to use one?
The AASM's patient site suggests checking data in the morning, not during the night, and focusing on sleep duration, consistent bed and wake times, and nighttime awakenings. Baron and colleagues wrote that they tell patients the best use of a tracker is probably to watch patterns such as time in bed, not exact minutes, and they ask for a written sleep log as well.
A sleep problem that keeps going is a reason to see a clinician, not to study the app harder. The AASM site says the same if worry about sleep is keeping you awake, or if you still feel tired after making changes. A good score does not rule out a sleep disorder, and a bad one does not diagnose one. Nothing here is a reason to stop prescribed treatment, including CPAP.
This article is for general education only and is not medical advice. Talk to a doctor or other qualified health professional before changing your diet, supplements, medication, or treatment.
Sources
Outside, "5 Wellness Trends We'd Like to See Go Away": https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/wellness-trends-2026-we-are-over/
PubMed Central, "Orthosomnia: Are Some Patients Taking the Quantified Self Too Far?" (Baron et al., J Clin Sleep Med 2017): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5263088/
PubMed Central, "Performance of seven consumer sleep-tracking devices compared with polysomnography" (Chinoy et al., Sleep 2021): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8120339/
PubMed Central, "Accuracy of Three Commercial Wearable Devices for Sleep Tracking in Healthy Adults" (Robbins et al., Sensors 2024): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11511193/
PubMed Central, "Accuracy of 11 Wearable, Nearable, and Airable Consumer Sleep Trackers: Prospective Multicenter Validation Study" (JMIR mHealth and uHealth 2023): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10654909/
PubMed, "Sham sleep feedback delivered via actigraphy biases daytime symptom reports in people with insomnia: Implications for insomnia disorder and wearable devices" (Gavriloff et al., J Sleep Res 2018): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29989248/
PubMed, "Placebo sleep affects cognitive functioning" (Draganich and Erdal, J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2014): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24417326/
PubMed Central, "Does providing feedback and guidance on sleep perceptions using sleep wearables improve insomnia? Findings from 'Novel Insomnia Treatment Experiment': a randomized controlled trial" (Spina et al., Sleep 2023): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10485571/
PubMed Central, "Prevalence of Orthosomnia in a General Population Sample: A Cross-Sectional Study" (Jahrami et al., Brain Sciences 2024): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11592250/
PubMed Central, "Consumer Sleep Technology: An American Academy of Sleep Medicine Position Statement" (Khosla et al., J Clin Sleep Med 2018): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5940440/
American Academy of Sleep Medicine, "Sleep tracking and 'sleepmaxxing' change bedtime behaviors — and keep some Americans awake at night": https://aasm.org/sleep-tracking-and-sleepmaxxing-change-bedtime-behaviors-and-keep-some-americans-awake-at-night/
Sleep Education (American Academy of Sleep Medicine), "Are sleep trackers improving your sleep or fueling sleep anxiety?": https://sleepeducation.org/are-sleep-trackers-improving-your-sleep-or-fueling-sleep-anxiety/
Our take
This take is opinion, not professional advice.
The Savvy Rabbits Staff
Our editors' take
The experiment we keep returning to is Gavriloff's, from 2018. People with insomnia got a made-up report, and the bad version left them feeling less alert and more tired by evening, though their reaction tests did not differ. That gap matters. A number can change how a day feels without showing that the day went worse. We would not tell anyone to throw the watch away. One man's tracker worries led to a sleep study that found severe apnea. We would push back on the morning verdict. A single score, from a formula most companies do not share, built partly on stage estimates that one lab study found were often wrong, should not get to decide how rested you are before you have had coffee.
